A peer mentoring program for persons with SCI was developed. Individuals who experienced SCI in the past and have adapted well functionally were asked to serve as mentors for individuals with newly-acquired SCI. These individuals undergo volunteer and peer mentoring training prior to mentoring activities. They are a subset of the study participants. We are tracking their satisfaction with life, positive and negative affect, life adjustment, depression, and social support over time. We hypothesize that measures of adjustment will become more positive as involvement as a mentor increases. The second subset of study participants are the individuals with newly-acquired SCI. They complete a baseline assessment of the measures listed above and then at 6 months, one year, and two years after match with a mentor. We also collect information about the quantity and quality of the mentoring sessions from both the mentor and mentee. We hypothesize that the mentee's adjustment will be positively influenced by the number and quality of the mentoring sessions. Due to the relatively small number of SCI per year in our program, we opted to offer the mentoring program to all individuals with newly acquired SCI, thus there is no control group.

Further study details as provided by University of Wisconsin, Madison:

Primary Outcome Measures:

satisfaction with life, positive and negative affect, life adjustment, depression, and social support

Secondary Outcome Measures:

is the mentee's adjustment positively influenced by the number and quality of the mentoring sessions

Eligibility

Ages Eligible for Study:

18 Years and older

Genders Eligible for Study:

Both

Accepts Healthy Volunteers:

No

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

experienced a SCI

Exclusion Criteria:

no severe traumatic brain injury

no severe psychiatric disturbance

Contacts and Locations

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Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00205205